>>Greetings-
>> I am interested in starting up my own little web design business and I need some help on one aspect of it, I was hoping you might be able to give me a hand. I have no idea what the going rate is for creating and maintaining websites these days, so I dont know what to charge customers for designing their sites. It would probably be best to charge by the hours that I put in, but there is no way that the customer would know how long I really worked on it. Or I could charge per page, but I that doesnt really seem to work well either. What is the best way to go about it?
>>Thanks for the help.
>>Craig S. Gillen
>>Webmaster, CSGWeb
>>
>>P.S. you can visit my site at http://www.csgweb.net/ however it is far from completion. I do however have my first potential customer so this is somewhat important.
>>thanks again.
>
>What you want to do is set up an hourly rate you charge. Say $50/hour for now. Then when you have a potential customer, set up a consultation, where you go over IN DETAIL, what they want for their site. Have a list of items to give them ideas (IE, chat, bbs, web-store, guest-book, on-line forms, css, flash, etc).
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>When you have a fairly detailed work list. Go back and estimate how much time it would take you to do the work, then multiply by your rate, and voila! You have a bid.
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>Get a 10% up front, then as the work progresses, update them, and as the updates are OK'd, bill for the percentage of work completed so far.
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>This way you're covered if the client backs out halfway through the project, you still get paid, at least somewhat.
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>It should be obvious that in this system you could get screwed if you estimate wrong, for this reason if the job is unduly large or complicated, give a bid with the disclaimer. "Based on x amount of hours work. Additional time will be billed at the rate of $50.00 / Hour (or whatever), upon client approval". Then keep your clients updated as to how many hours it has taken, and give constant revisions if you think it is going to take longer.
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>This is what I do in my Landscape Design Business, and people expect these k,ind of arrangements when working with professionals. This means, however, that you need to be a professional. Some kind of degree or certification is a plus, but most important is that your owrk is quality, and delivered on-time in a professional manner.
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>Best of Luck!
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>PS. As far as the actual rate to charge. Check out what other people are charging, then get a feel for what you feel comfortable with at your level.

Excelent. I thought there might be an easier way. This will definitely work, but it just seems like a lot of guess work. anyway i sincerely appreciate the help.
thanks
Craig S. Gillen
CSGWeb